Heat problems plague rally for Obama, Biden

Sunday

Aug 24, 2008 at 12:01 AMAug 24, 2008 at 7:06 PM

At least 15 people attending Saturday's rally for Barack Obama and Joe Biden in Springfield, Ill., were taken to hospitals with heat-related illness as a result of standing for hours in the sunny, near-90-degree heat, many of them without access to water.

Jayette Bolinski

At least 15 people attending Saturday's rally for Barack Obama and Joe Biden in Springfield, Ill., were taken to hospitals with heat-related illness as a result of standing for hours in the sunny, near-90-degree heat, many of them without access to water.

“Heat was the biggest problem,” said Bob Reside with the Springfield Fire Department. “With that many people packed together on a hot, humid day without wind stirring is the perfect recipe for having something like this happen. We were doing our best to get water into the crowd.”

Reside said Saturday evening he did not have a precise account of how many people were treated for heat-related illness. But he said local paramedics were overwhelmed and sought help from Menard, Morgan and Christian county ambulance services to help transport sick people to the hospitals.

Examples of heat exhaustion could be seen everywhere.

At one point in the early afternoon, police carried a sluggish, red-cheeked toddler out of the Old State Capitol plaza because the child was overcome by the heat. An older man with grass on the back of his clothing and the back of his hair was assisted out after he passed out on the lawn.

A man in his late teens or early 20s was wheeled out on a stretcher, eyes closed and head drooped forward with an oxygen mask strung around his neck after he, too, apparently passed out from the heat.

Paramedics and police worked to revive a man who passed out and hit his head on the brick sidewalk on south side of the Old Capitol Plaza during Sen. Joe Biden’s speech. They loaded him onto a stretcher and wheeled him to a waiting ambulance at Sixth and Adams streets.

Springfield Police Deputy Chief Clay Dowis said the number of people passing out from the heat was a great concern for police. Many officers found themselves helping heat-weary people to the perimeters to cool off. A Springfield police officer carried the sick toddler out of the plaza to get the child help for apparent heat-related illness. They helped numerous other people out to find shade and tried to get water to others.

“An awful lot of my policemen took off their policemen hats and put on their paramedics hats,” Dowis said.

Secret Service agents did not allow water bottles into the staging area because they were concerned the bottles could be used as “projectiles” and thrown at Obama, Biden and other dignitaries on stage.

A public works truck was set up at the public entrance at Seventh and Washington streets to collect water bottles because agents manning the security checkpoint there were making people abandon their bottles.

However, no other arrangements apparently were made for getting water to the crowd. No water could be found inside the perimeter of the Old State Capitol, and few crowd members were willing to leave to go search for a cool drink. Many of them had been waiting six to nine hours to see Obama and were unwilling to give up their viewing spot.

Police arranged for a fire hydrant at Sixth and Washington to be opened up so people could catch some of the gushing water to cool themselves off with. Many people were wetting paper towels at the portable sinks near the portable toilets and using the towels to cool down their heads and necks.

Downtown Springfield Inc. had three tables around the plaza area where they were selling water for $2. They poured cold bottled water into paper Pepsi cups to satisfy the Secret Service agents.

It was unclear Saturday why no arrangements were made to make free water accessible to the thousands of visitors who crammed into the plaza area for the announcement.

St. John’s Hospital spokesman Brian Reardon said about 12 people were treated there for heat stroke or heat exhaustion. A nursing supervisor at Memorial Medical Center said five people were treated also.

“There was nothing critical, but we did have a bit of a rush of people,” he said.

Otherwise, Saturday was smooth sailing for law enforcement and emergency personnel. Springfield police, who coordinated a great deal of the law enforcement presence, said they thought the event as a whole went well.

“There were a couple bumps in the road,” Dowis said. “We were anticipating large crowds, but it surprised us how big it really was, which led to some logistical problems.”

He also noted that police would have allowed people into the plaza area a little earlier, but they had to work with other agencies’ timetables and wait for security stations to be set up.

Dowis said he believes the crowd estimate of up to 35,000 people is “pretty close” to accurate.

“It was crazy. I’ve never seen that many people packed into that small a venue,” he said. “We easily had twice as many people as we did (at Obama’s 2007 appearance).”

He said police at one point had to close Jefferson Street and a couple lanes of Madison Street because the line of people extended so far north.

Reporter Rhys Saunders contributed to this report. Jayette Bolinski can be reached at 788-1530.